Learn to live or be ready to die
by Dark Cat soul
Summary: A hunter figures out that in order to live he needs to learn the survivors tricks to doing just that. (Rated T due to violence, language and some mild gore)
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don`t own anything but my OCs

Author notes: This is the first fanfiction I`ve done and I`m kind of nervous. I`m not sure how it is so I`ll have to see what you guys think

* * *

I slowly lowered myself into a sitting position. The rooftop wasn`t high enough for me to see all the city but it was high enough catch all the smells of it. Certain scents started distinguishing themselves from the main one of the sickness that blanketed the buildings. The thick smothering smell of smoke brought my attention to a fire. I turned my head to the direction the smell was coming from and spotted it easily. A tower of black smoke just peaked over the city and broke up the clear sky. It was surprising how quickly my senses got used to those but that could of been because not a day went by when something wasn`t on fire. They still made it a bit harder to find the scent of meals but long as they were far enough away from it I wasn`t be affected that much.

My stomach was going mad, wanting food like a starving animal. It had only been a few hours since my last meal but it didn`t seem to care. I tried to ignore it but retaliated by started to seep into my other senses, blocking my nose and clouding my vision. I couldn`t hunt like this, my mind needed to be on top form to hunt or be ready to get killed by a meal`s loud thing. Once again trying to mentally block out my hunger only worsened the situation, it only angered the beast. I needed to do something, anything so to clear my head so finding a meal would be at least possible. I opened my mouth and without a second hesitation bit into my forearm as hard as my jaw would allow me to. The hunger seemed to be satisfied by just the feeling of eating and faded enough to let my mind think. The smell of fresh blood pushing away the clouds my hunger had created, freeing senses to do their job. my arm worked it`s way out from between a set of sharp fang, that replaced normal teeth a long time ago. my head clear, I took a long sniff. One smell stood out the second it entered. The fire blocked out any precise details but one thing was for sure, it was food. Fresh or not it would have to do.

I raised from my perch and rolled my shoulders. My claws itched badly, they wanted this hunt as bad as my stomach did, even if it might only be the smell of a claimed meal. It was a chance to eat and no part of my body wanted to miss that chance. Crouching let my legs gain their power for a quick burst of energy. I quickly extended them and leapt into the air. The cold wind embracing me while hurtling into the sky and coming down on another roof, being guided by promise of food while jumping from building to building.

As I continued to follow the smell. Soon high buildings of the city centre shifted into the small homes of the city outskirts. Once normal homes were now boarded up or broken into. Finding a meal was usually very difficult as it could hide in anyone of the buildings. luckily the meal I was smelling clearly wasn`t doing too well at hiding from anything. A small home had infected practically crawling all over it. They had collected in a huge group in front of the home, most were franticly trying to get to the house through a barricade of boards and furniture. A few had started attacking each other, as it meant less compotation for the meal. One swiped another in the face causing it to fall onto the house`s lawn. The second it`s head hit the floor an explosion of the smell of blood blasted from it. The infected stood up, a huge cut now marked its forehead. Most likely it had fallen onto a rock or something else sharp. I noticed a sudden silence descend on the world. The infected horde had stopped yelling and growling and were now stood staring at the cut infected. knowing what was going to happen, I leapt on to the houses roof and dropped in through a hole in it, caused by who knows what.

The sounds of the horde descending on the cut infected quickly broke the silence that had just formed. screaming and growling now played as the soundtrack to the bright, sunny day. They were annoying but that was all it ever was unless you were in the middle of them, most infected go mad at any hint of fresh blood or meat. keeping a level head, was my key to surviving. Any break in focus and any letting down of guard, even for a millisecond, could be and usually was fatal. The room I had landed in looked like a snack`s room, a lot of bright, now faded, colours with toys and other stuff scattered around. slowly making my way across the room, every part of me was on high alert any place nowadays was just another place for you to die in. A meal was around here but finding it and staying hidden was very difficult, especially in these small spaces.

Nothing showed any sign of my meal`s presence. Either this meal hadn't touched anything or other meals had been here before. This trend stayed unbroken till halfway down the staircase where a faint clicking sound alerted my ears. The sound repeated again and again. A good way to find meals was to allow any noise to guild you to its maker. This noise was the same as all the others, . The ground floor was as lifeless as the rest of the house, save for the sight of the horde outside through a window, who were now just fighting each other like a small battle going on outside. A door had been left slightly open, the clicking sound coming from behind it. Unlike closed doors, which where sealed shut by magic or something cause as much as you tried you couldn`t open them so most infected just bashed them down, open doors could be opened. I pushed my hand between the door and it`s frame and slowly pushed it further open. The door had been hiding an old Wooden staircase, going down into a dark basement. The clicking noise running up the stairs and through the house.

lowering myself onto all fours let me be ready to attack in a split second or allowed my instincts to do that for me. Pausing for a second to make sure my body was ready, I slowly crawled down the stairs. The clicking sound got louder and louder the further down I got. The sound of my claws on the stairs almost perfectly integrated into its rhythm. I stopped dead in my tracks on the last few steps when I spotted what I was hunting. My meal was kneeling in the middle of the basement, it`s back towards me. judging by the shape it was certainly male, he was messing with something in his hands. He turned lightly almost showing off what it was, it was one of those loud things meals use to kill us infected. He pulled part of it back which made the clicking noise that had been drawn me here. This was too confusing those loud things didn`t click they just went bang. Why was this meal doing this? Was this some kind of ritual meals had to do for the loud things to work?

"Come on, come on." He almost seemed to beg the thing. He continued to mess with it until a much louder noise came from it and the part he had been pulling snapped forward. "Right that's that done, now what?" He started messing around with it again. For some reason my hunger didn`t come and attack him right now. This meant I was standing still and just watching. Did he break me? My eyes tried to follow what he was doing but my brain got left behind, it just seemed so complex. He put something into the loud thing and clicked it again. Suddenly looking very happy when it happened. Which meant for some reason this click was different to all the other clicks.

He stood up and turned much quicker than could be expected from a meal and my puzzled mind failed to move in time. His small smile faded and a look of fear replaced it as he saw me. He jumped back, brought up the thing and pointed it at me. My instincts finally took control, throwing me forward. He moved one of his fingers, rather then the expected a bang and then darkness all that came from the thing was another click and the quick burst of screams that my claws swiftly silenced.

That click was the sound of his hope shattering and his life ending. That quick scream his last beg to live. Neither were of any importance. The animal inside, my claws and my hunger all got what they wanted. Given to them by their weak minded servant.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I don't own anything but my OCs

Authors notes: I`m trying to improve my writing as I go along so it`ll start off worse then it ends (I hope). Thank you to anyone who leaves a review, I appreciate it.

_Text like_ _this: _main character`s inner voice

* * *

The meal didn`t last long, soon he was nothing but a lifeless claimed meal and a satisfied feeling in my stomach. With food found and eaten, my brain finally got an opportunity to say something. Only it had nothing but questions, mostly about what my meal had been doing. Why did the loud thing only click? What was he doing with it earlier? These questions either would get answered quickly or never. Honestly, a quick answer would be best. Questions where nothing but distractions and distractions meant death. Standing to my full height gave me a chance to stretch out my back, something I did a lot because of the time spent hunched over a meal or crouched in a corner. I only knew a few things and how to take care of myself covered most of them.

It was amazing what claimed meals told you about their last few moments of life. My meal was easy to read. His eyes were wide open so his death clearly came as a surprise. A long slash across his throat showed which infected had killed him. My kind always left precise cuts in vital areas, at least good ones did. The ones who hadn't eaten for a while just clawed and ripped at whatever they could, which left nothing to eat but scraps. Other kinds left different marks and wounds but that wasn`t important, the only threats to me were others of my kind, meal`s loud things or a crier.

Criers were feared by everything, infected or meals, they could carve you to bits in seconds. Even the biggest infected stayed quiet at the sound of that cry. Which sounded like the background noise right now. Fully silent, not a bird call or infected growl. A full blast of fear and shock radiated through my whole body when it came. A loud cry followed by a sad inhale then another moan. The volume said not only was a crier in hearing range but possibly in the house with me.

My meal. It must have smelt it. If it cornered me down here that was it, I would be done for. Fighting was suicide, running was best but I had no idea where the crier was. Its scent blended in so well it was impossible to pinpoint. That was another thing I feared about criers, if they didn`t cry they were basically undetectable. I needed something I could use to help if I did run into the crier, which was scarily most likely going to happen. For the first time in a while my stomach was letting my head take control so I could actually think about what to do.

_Ok think. There`s a crier who will kill you if you don't do something._ A small voice came from inside my head. My mind was going at a mile a minute but I got nothing, no idea or plan to get out of here. _Your claws versus the crier`s. Crier wins hands down. _Of all the times my mind could go blank it had to be in a situation like this. _You need a weapon or something, that`s it a weapon. You need a…_ My thought train ground to a halt mid flow. It was a long shot but I was standing next to a weapon, my meals loud thing.

His death defiantly did come as a shock to him as he was still holding his loud thing. His hand had a weird hold on it. His index finger was positioned inside a metal hoop attached under the loud thing`s main part. The rest of his fingers were curled round another part of the loud thing, a handle I guess. Uncurling his fingers was bit harder then expected but finally I managed to pry the loud thing out of his hand.

It was a bit lighter than I thought it would be, as normally only strong meals carried them. Then again this was a small version of the loud things. Now how did that guy move before I claimed him? I saw him move his fingers in someway but that moment was sort of a blur. It made a clicking noise when he did it so that must have been something. Shifting my hand to mimic the way his hand had gripped it, made me realise one rather important thing. The way I held it caused me to point a hole at the end of the loud thing towards the floor. I had learned that this end was where the flash normally came from, thanks to a few close ones with meals. So that was what I pointed at stuff.

_Ok you`ve got that figured out, good job. Now you have to actually use this thing. S_ometimes that voice in my head was really sarcastic but it had a point. Knowing how to point at stuff wasn`t going to do much good if I couldn`t do anything with the loud thing.

Next thing to deal with was to figure out why this loud thing didn`t bang and just clicked. The meal was moving a part of it before he even tried to do anything else. So maybe that was what I needed to do. Taking hold of the top part of the loud thing and pulling it back, just as my meal had done. Causing a small object to fly out of the side of the top part of the loud thing and spiral through the air. It also did one thing I had forgot about, it let out a click. In reality it wasn`t loud at all but in the silent house it was like an explosion. It echoed through the almost deserted home and then faded into a full silence.

Everything held its breath, nothing moved. The only thing I could hear was a very faint growl. As long as I stayed absolutely quiet, the crier would most likely forget about the sound and leave. A simple task apart from the object that had flown out of the loud thing`s top. It landed on a bright tube and turned it on. bright light filled the basement, followed by the sound of the object hitting the floor. Silence didn`t come this time instead I was partly deafened by a huge scream followed by a trail of loud stomps leading from the house`s front to the top of the staircase. Then nothing.

I copied what my meal had done to me by raising the loud thing and pointing at the top of the staircase. Right now I had to be right about this or I`d end up as the new wallpaper. The house stayed silent as the crier suddenly stopped growling or moving round. A normal person may relax but I wasn`t a normal person. I was glad I didn`t let my guard down. It meant I was ready when crier burst into the staircase and started sprinting towards me, long claws outstretched in front of itself.

My eyes automatically shut themselves and all I heard were a few screams then a series of bangs.


End file.
